this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: a fresh curfew's declared in the ukrainian capital, kyiv, after a series of russian strikes on civilian targets. you can see here that the scale of the destruction is absolutely immense, and spread over a wide area, surrounded by apartment blocks. there could be a lot more of this ahead. president biden says vladimir putin's back is against the wall, and he may be preparing the use of unconventional weapons. my administration issued new warnings that, based on evolving intelligence,

russia may be planning a cyber attack against us. and a big week for girls in afghanistan as they're due to return to secondary education. hello. welcome to the programme. first, president volodymyr zelensky says ukraine will never bow to ultimatums from russia or surrender its biggest cities. it comes after he refused russia's demand to give up the southern city of mariupol. ukraine's capital, kyiv, is under a new night—time curfew, after residential areas were attacked by russia, killing eight people. one of the targets was a shopping centre, which russia claims was storing rockets. russian forces are trying to encircle and cut off the capital, but large areas around kyiv remain under ukrainian control, especially in the south. our international correspondent orla guerin reports.

footage of the shopping centre in kyiv, released by russia, appears to show a military vehicle driving up. and this was the russian attack, which moscow says was targeting rocket launchers stored at the site. in the darkness, emergency services pick their way through the ruins. from the rubble, hands emerge, trembling, and a survivor is pulled to safety. but eight people were killed in this attack on the capital. here's what's left of the retroville shopping centre. there are indications that the ukrainian military had a presence here. but russia has hit plenty of non—military targets in kyiv and elsewhere. well, you can see here that the scale of the destruction is absolutely immense

and spread over a wide area, surrounded by apartment blocks. there could be a lot more of this ahead for kyiv. russian forces are not inside the city, but they can hit hard from the outside. how are you feeling about the future here now in kyiv? i don't know now, but i don't want to leave kyiv. you want to stay? it's my home. even though things are so dangerous now? i know, but dangerous all ukraine, all cities. but the key city, the key target is kyiv — and in the forests on the outskirts, its defenders are preparing for battle. gunfire these territorial defence recruits... gunfire

..now training for urban combat. their instructor is a georgian who fought the russians during the war in his homeland in 2008. the concern here is not that russia can surround or capture kyiv, but that it may avenge itself on the city. i'm not sure that they will be able to besiege kyiv, because we're a large city with a lot of defence, and it would be really hard to encircle it. but what i really am afraid is that out of weakness, out of despair, because they are losing this war, they will destroy it as much as possible — because of hate. then, time to get into position behind the sniper sights. alex has been a hunter since boyhood. he is unflinching and unapologetic

about his new wartime role, hunting the enemy. it's our motherland and we must defend it. and in this case, i think it's no difference between animals which i try to shoot and the animals which come here to kill our people, kill our children, destroy our buildings and destroy our life. gunfire ukrainian forces may be facing a war of attrition here. british defence officials expect russia to make a renewed push for the city in the coming weeks. orla guerin, bbc news, on the outskirts of kyiv. in the us, president biden has warned vladimir putin may be considering using chemical and biological weapons in ukraine. the president said that by making false chemical weapons allegations against ukraine and the united states russia may be seeking

to create a pretext, to use them itself. let's have a listen to what he said. his back is against the wall, and now he's talking about new false flags he's setting up, including he's asserting that we, america, have biological, as well as chemical weapons in europe. simply not true — i guarantee you. they're also suggesting that ukraine has biological and chemical weapons in ukraine. that's a clear sign he's considering using both of those. president biden also said the us had "evolving intelligence" to suggest russia may be planning a cyber attack, in response to western support for ukraine. he has a capability, he hasn't used it yet and — but it's part of the playbook. i've warned he will maliciously use cyber activity

in response to the cost we'd impose with our allies and partners on the world. but, look, today, my administration has renewed warnings that based on evolving intelligence, russia may be planning a cyber attack against us. well, a little earlier i spoke to tim starks, senior editor at cyberscoop, and i began by asking him what sort of cyber attacks russia is likely to unleash. the way that they were discussing at the white house is that they were — the russians were probing our websites for vulnerabilities. it's difficult to imagine an attack like that happening on the us at this time despite what the president said. we know, certainly, that russia has interfered in our elections before, we know that they've let ransomware attackers run rampant in the us, but the kind of attacks that they might conduct on the us are a little harder to predict in —— thank the ukraine because there's more of a track record of what they've done to ukraine, which includes things like shutting down

the electricity grid back in 2015, among other things. well, among other things, what are the other kind of things people should be looking out for then? if we're talking about everyone, the white house was warning today that, basically, just do the basic stuff — get all your software patched. if we're talking about the kind of attacks that are most likely, it gets difficult to predict. i think that it feels unlikely at this time, again, despite what the president said, we're going to be attacked. if you're talking about the universe of possibilities, that gets a little easier to discuss. we've seen everything from attacks that may have led to the death of a baby in a hospital due to ransomware causing malfunctions with equipment according to a lawsuit in the us to things like $80 million being stolen from a bangladesh bank. the range of possible cyber attacks is pretty wide. i see. it's not of course only russia that has cyber hackers. russia itself surely

must be the targets of hackers from around the world? yes, certainly, there are activists who might be involved in this. in fact, ukraine has actually called on hackers to go after russian targets. the us has its own capabilities. we are considered by a think tank last year, the international institute for... i forgot the name! iiss is the name of the think tank. they're ranked the us number one in terms of its capabilities on cyber. and then in the next layer down, included russia, included china, included the uk, and included a number of five eyes countries. and it's difficult to get the numbers for an actual clarified budget, but there are certainly thousands of people working on this in the us and just cyber command alone that are on the offensive hacking side, the budget over there is $600 million approximately, that's just for the

classified budget, so it gives you a little bit of the sense of the scope of how much money the us is devoting to this. we're apparently — not apparently — we are devoting more moneyjust again on the unclassified side, dod has $10 billion for cyber — that's more than all of the other civilian agencies combined, which are much more focused on defence. i see, and i think people will relate and understand hacks on the businesses, their passwords and things like that. is there any evidence so far kind of that there is any cyber activity or hacking that has actually uncovered any sensitive military information on either side? well, it depends on how you define the word hacking here. certainly, if you talk about things like wikileaks and some of the secrets that were exposed with the help of insiders like chelsea manning, you're looking at — again, if you want to call that hacked, sometimes that's defined as that according to the insider threat kind of model of how cyber works.

it is something that the us has used to get involved in communications back in the iraq war, there were attempts to disrupt that and communications networks. that would be one example of that happening as we've been hearing, heavy fighting is continuing around the ukrainian capital, kyiv, but the uk ministry of defence says according to its analysis, the russian advance there has stalled. 0ur correspondent gordon corera has put together this assessment of the russian military strategy. russia's strategy has changed since the war began. when russian forces first invaded, they came in broadly on three fronts — in the north, in the east and in the south. the aim was lightning strikes to try and seize key cities, but that failed. if we look at the capital, kyiv, they've been trying to encircle the city. but it doesn't look like they've got the combat power

to actually go in and take it. if we move to the south, we can see here that they've had more progress, and this city, mariupol, has been hard fought over. you can see its strategic importance in connecting up russian territory. that's led to siege tactics and scenes of terrible devastation. russia's shift means more use of missiles and artillery to pound cities from a distance. the concern is its tactics will become more aggressive, using systems like these thermobaric rockets. over the weekend, it said it used a hypersonic missile, seen here being tested. it flies five times the speed of sound. that was likely to remind the rest of the world that for all their problems, russia still has advanced weapons to deploy. meanwhile, the west is continuing to support the ukrainian resistance. today, the uk's ministry of defence showed off some of the air defence systems they're sending to the country

to try to prevent the russians gaining full control of the skies. another shift we've seen is russia expanding to attack targets, all the way here, around against lviv, including military infrastructure. this may well be partly about stopping supplies getting into the country. all of this makes it look like we're moving to a war of attrition in which russia tries to pound the cities and do as much damage as it can against the ukrainian military, while the west tries to support it. that all suggests we could be in for the long haul, which would mean significant casualties, many of them civilian. stay with us on bbc news. still to come, escaping a city under siege: we talk to some of those who have fled from mariupol.

i'm so proud of both of you. let there be no more wars or bloodshed between arabs and israelis. with great regret, _ the committee have decided that south africa be excluded . from the 1970 competition. singing in own language streaking across the sky, the white—hot wreckage from mir drew gasps from onlookers on fiji.

this is bbc world news. the latest headlines: a fresh curfew has been declared in the ukrainian capital, kyiv, after a series of russian strikes on civilian targets. president biden warns vladimir putin may use chemical and biological weapons in ukraine as well as launching cyber attacks against western countries. let's get more now on the situation in mariupol. the first international journalists have arrived into areas of the city under russian control, describing utter devastation. hundreds of thousands of civilians remain trapped there, with little access to food, water or power. in another development, the authorities in ukraine's biggest port, 0desa, say russian naval forces in the black sea have shelled some residential buildings on the outskirts of the city. it's the first time buildings there have been hit.

our correspondent wyre davies has been speaking to families who've escaped mariupol to the city of nipro. a warning — his report contains scenes you may find distressing. in recent days, we've seen how cruel this conflict is, especially for children. but there is just occasionally kindness and humanity, too. this community—run centre in the central city of dnipro is the first point of safety and refuge for many victims of the war from across eastern ukraine, including mariupol. the city they left behind is in ruins. barely a building is left unscathed by russian shelling, and according to the city council, 3,000 civilians have been killed. many of them lie where they fell, others are hastily buried by neighbours. a russian—imposed deadline for mariupol�*s defenders to surrender was ignored. so the shelling continues. some residents stay

in makeshift shelters. those who can, flee north. nearly everyone who leaves mariupol in cars packed with families arrives here with absolutely nothing at all. and it is to places like this they come, waiting patiently for the very basics — food, clothes, and medicines. children get hand—me—down toys. their mothers, the bare essentials. here they avoid talking too much about what people have gone through. it's too soon. it's also an effort dealing with so many desperate cases. translation: everything that is brought here - isn't funded by large corporations or budgets, it's from local people, and some from charities, but you can see how many people there are and what we have just isn't sufficient. in what was a school canteen, volunteers package up basic food parcels that will keep refugee families fed for a few days. for schoolteacher vadim,

it's his civic duty to be helping out. because i'm ukrainian, and i must do what i can. this is myjob now. this is my front now. and if i can help people i must do it. some will stay in dnipro. for others it's the start of a long journey. as they escape to mariupol, some were told by russian soldiers to keep going as this city too would soon be under attack. "we were driving out under fire," says 0lga. "shells were exploding. "they were bombing us and there were dead bodies everywhere." the un says there are 6.5 million displaced people inside ukraine alone. the city and this community are doing their part to make that transition less traumatic. wyre davies, bbc news, dnipro. ukraine's president volodymyr zelensky says a meeting with president putin is necessary to determine russia's position on ending the war he launched in ukraine.

here's our chief international correspondent lyse doucet with the latest from kyiv. president zelensky has asked repeatedly to meet president putin. i remember injanuary, even before this began when one world leader after another was speaking to president putin, president zelensky said, "why are you not talking to me?" people ask him now, "what is there to talk about?" and he says, "even if there is a 1% chance of ending "this war, i will take it." but we hear from the turkish and israeli mediators, while they say they've made some progress, they say the time is not right — and that is the message we also hearfrom russia. president putin himself keeps repeatedly saying that this campaign is going according to plan — whatever his plan is — and that it will only end once it achieves its goals. we still ask, the people of this capital ask, what are the goals of president putin here?

we're at the third 35—hour curfew here since the invasion began. last night was a night of sustained russian artillery fire — louder, closer than it's been before. but still, no clear movement of russian forces into the city. there is an assessment that they are consolidating their positions on the edge of the city, digging in their artillery. but still, they cannot take this capital or even encircle it. it's a month now on thursday since this invasion began. and thursday will also mark a moment of intense diplomacy. presidentjoe biden will be in brussels, there'll be a nato meeting, a g7 meeting, an eu meeting trying to find ways to end this war. will it make president putin change his mind? it hasn't yet. let's get some of the day's other news.

the us senate has started four days of confirmation hearings for the first black woman to be nominated to the supreme court. judge ketanji brown jackson was picked by president biden afterjustice stephen breyer announced his retirement in january. in southern china, more than 130 people are feared to have died after a passenger plane crashed in a mountainous area. urgent efforts are under way to find out why the aircraft went down near the city of wuzhou. china eastern airlines has reportedly grounded all its 737 planes. the man accused of murdering the british mp sir david amess is said to have carried out reconnaissance on other potential targets, including a cabinet minister. 26—year—old ali harbi ali denies murder and preparing acts of terrorism. the evidence was amongst the first presented by the prosecution on the opening day of his trial. sir david was stabbed to death in his essex constituency last 0ctober.

the taliban in afghanistan is due to lift its ban and allow girls to return to secondary school classrooms on wednesday. but not all are convinced it will happen. the bbc�*s firouzeh akbarian has been following three pupils over the last few months to find out how the ban has impacted them. what a difference a year can make. a busy girls�* school now turned into empty classes after the taliban took power. this past seven months without school has been devastating for some girls. hawa is 13. she lives in the capital, kabul.

seven months ago, around ten million students attended classes, including four million girls. one of them, anusha sharifi, age 15. she lives in the remote province of ghor. she wants to become a journalist. girls her age feel they are trapped.

the taliban have pledged that all girls will return to school from the next educational year on 21 march. they said... but the girls we've spoken to are not convinced. they think the school they once knew will change forever. sanaz wants to become a designer in the future. this year will be the last chapter of her school life. for her, the taliban's reform of the educational system is limiting. in the �*90s, when the taliban were last in power, girls were banned from schools for five years. now, female students fear that

history might repeat itself. firouzeh akbarian, bbc news. and finally, the duke and duchess of cambridge have been visiting the ancient maya ruins in belize on the third day of their caribbean tour. they were given a guided tour of the ancient palace's summit, which remains the tallest man—made structure in belize. the visit is intended to strengthen the uk's ties with commonwealth countries as the queen marks 70 years on the throne. that's on the throne. it from me. get more on

social that's it from me. get more on social media. you can reach me on twitter — i'm @lvaughanjones. by by by. it's very settled on the weather front right now, and that's how it's going stay generally over the next few days. how about the details? and there are a few to talk about — just the chance of catching a shower on tuesday. some of these fairweather clouds will build into shower clouds, but i think the vast majority of us will miss them. now, this is the high pressure that's dominating the weather across europe — it really is an extensive high, and so many towns and cities enjoying that spring sunshine. so the forecast then through the early hours shows a little bit of cloud here and there, perhaps some mist and murk forming through the early hours. generally frost—free with temperatures of around 3—6 celsius, but in northern parts of england, in the north—east and also in scotland, just a touch of frost,

particularly in rural areas. so we wake up to lots of sunshine, and again, these shower clouds may develop across parts of wales, central england, and the north here. i mean, you could hardly see them on the weather map here. so again, for most of us, it's a dry day. temperatures typically 15—18, but some of us will warm up to around 20 or so, particularly across southern parts of england, the usual spots. so the forecast into wednesday then, and light winds, again, lots of sunshine, again, just the outside chance of those showers being sparked off by the higher temperatures. and i think widely in the high teens across england, and certainly in the lowlands of scotland easily 16 or even 17. and pleasant enough for northern ireland too, the mid—teens. now, the high pressure is right over the uk on thursday. that means very light winds across central areas of the country. so, even though the temperatures may be not quite as high on thursday in some areas, it's still going to feel every bit as warm because the winds

will be light, and we'll have so much sunshine around, as well. now, friday and the weekend, the high pressure is going to wobble a little bit — all that means is that the winds will start to sort of change in direction. but on the whole, it means very little change in the weather overall. so here's the outlook, then, for the next few days — a lot of fine weather, it really is a cracking week of weather. i think the next spell of more unsettled weather won't arrive until around the end of the month. that's it for me. bye—bye.

this is bbc news, the headlines: a curfew is in place in the ukrainian capital, kyiv. it comes after residential areas were attacked by russia, killing eight people. russian forces are trying to encircle and cut off the city, but large areas around kyiv remain under ukrainian control, especially in the south. president biden has warned that there are clear signs his russian counterpart, vladimir putin, may be preparing to use chemical and biological weapons in ukraine. mr biden said the russian leader �*had his back to the wall.�* he also warned that russia may be preparing a cyber attack. the ukrainian president has again called for direct talks with vladimir putin to try to put an end to the fighting. but volodymyr zelenksy said that such a meeting would be

unlikely to lead to agreement on longer term issues such